Lesbian officer Catie Poole appointed LGBTQ liaison for Nashville

The Metro Nashville Police Department has created a full-time LGBTQ liaison and chose openly lesbian officer Catie Poole for this position because of her understanding of LGBTQ people and her five-year experience as a police agent.

Catie Poole has already set goals:

“to be focused on the community—getting involved with the numerous groups around here, getting to know them personally and to be able to be there for them as a resource… They’ll have my contact information personally, and not just the community groups, but also individuals in the community.”

She has met with leaders of organizations and groups.

to launch a Safe Place program “to address the hate crime issue… hate crimes are one of the most under-reported crimes out there.”

Poole will set up a site related to the program.

As she explains, “the website that we will be creating here with the launch of the program is meant to promote the reporting of hate crimes across all minority groups… The safe place program will… also, give them a safe place of refuge…

“Participating businesses will put the rainbow decals on their front window in a very prominent location so that people know they can go into a location as a place of safety and seek help in contacting the authorities.

“This is meant to comfort victims who may have a negative impression of the police, people who have perhaps even fled war and violence, and to give them a safe place to stay.”

“When they offered it [the job] to me, I jumped on it. I was excited about it from the get-go, so I’m honored asked to do it,” Catie Poole said.

Deputy Chief John Drake, head of the Support Services Bureau, added, “It’s a start-up program, and we wanted someone good, energetic, knowledgeable of the entire community, especially the LGBTQ community’s needs, and she was perfect! She’s been a good officer. On top of her work as a patrol officer, she was already doing community outreach, and I knew she would rise to the challenge.”

There are other US cities with LGBTQ liaisons within the Metropolitan Police such as Seattle, Atlanta, Annapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Virginia Beach, and Washington DC.

Now you have a lesbian LGBTQ Liaison in the Nashville Police Department whom you can contact if you encounter a problem.